by Robbi McCoy
“But, I mean, do you think you’ll be involved? It sounds like you rarely see them.”
“I don’t see them much. Once a year, maybe. This was a rare treat. So, no, I doubt this child will even know he has two grandmothers.”
“Does that make you sad?” Lauren snapped the last corner of the bottom sheet over the mattress.
“Sure. I’d love to see my son being a father. I’ve often wished I was more involved in Eric’s life. But I made that choice way back when.”
“When you gave custody to Lucas?”
“Right. Eric and I have never gotten to know one another that well.”
“What was that all about, Cassie?” Lauren tossed the top sheet across the bed and they each took one side. “Giving up custody. You told me once you did it because it was best for Eric. Why would you think that?”
“I wasn’t always so together as I am now, Lauren. At the time, I had a lot of problems.” Cassie bent over to tuck the base of the sheet under the mattress, then stood up and looked serious. “I was a young married woman with a baby and I was having all these feelings for women. I fell in love with the babysitter, for Christ’s sake. I was confused and scared and sometimes I just wanted to die.”
Lauren felt like giving her a hug, but held her place, smoothing the sheet with her hand. “You had an affair with your babysitter?”
“No. I was in love with her. Well, I thought I was. She wasn’t even a lesbian. She was just a stupid girl, same age as me. I never even touched her. Just fantasized about her. But Lucas was convinced there was more to it than that. He fired her. That sent me into a fury, which he took as proof she was my lover. I was so miserable after that. That’s when I started getting high and then things really went downhill.”
“You never told me any of this.”
“No. I’m not proud of it. I screwed up.” She tossed over a pillow and pillowcase. “It was a painful time in my life. I hurt people and I made bad decisions. It was all much worse because of the baby. I didn’t even know I was pregnant. Not the first two months. As soon as I found out, I stopped the drugs, cold. I’ll never really know if I lost the baby because of the drugs or if it would have happened anyway.” Cassie sat on the edge of the bed, her shoulders slumped. “Lucas blamed me, and that was the main reason I gave up custody of Eric. At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do. He convinced me I was an unfit mother. After all, I had killed my unborn child.”
This time Lauren wasn’t able to hold back. She moved over to Cassie, sat beside her and put her arms around her.
Cassie patted her arm. “Lucas never forgave me for that.”
“Eric never did either.”
Cassie looked at Lauren, her eyes moist. “I know. Once when he was visiting me, when he was twelve, he threw a tantrum over something. I don’t remember what. Something unimportant. But in the midst of his tirade, he screamed, ‘You killed my brother, you killed my little brother Kevin.’” She forced a smile. “I had never even heard the name Kevin before. But later I found out it came from Lucas. He had chosen it for our second son.”
After a moment, Lauren said, “Did you ever consider renegotiating the custody arrangement? Joint custody or something?”
“Honestly, Lauren, that was a big part of why I wanted to become a lawyer. I went to see one when Eric was eight. I told him I wanted to sue for joint custody. By then, I was a college graduate. I had a good job teaching high school. I had my shit together. I hadn’t touched drugs of any kind for years. He told me to let it go. He said it would be difficult and messy and would harm my child.”
“Why?”
“Because I was a lesbian. He said I’d probably lose my job too. With the facts coming out in court like they surely would, my students’ parents would find out I was gay and who knew what trouble that would cause. He made it seem impossible and I really didn’t want to bring any more chaos into Eric’s life. So I let it go. I mean, he had a good life. He wasn’t in danger or anything. But now I can see how different things could have been with the right lawyer. Maybe. It’s hard to say. If Lucas had fought me, you know how they would have portrayed me in court.”
“Like he apparently portrayed you in his home.”
They sat there quietly side by side on the edge of the bed.
“Thanks for telling me about this,” Lauren said at last.
“It’s always been very easy to talk to you.”
“You know I feel the same.” Lauren squeezed her hand.
“There’s one thing we never did talk about, though, isn’t there?”
Lauren understood she was referring to the kiss.
“It’s ironic,” Cassie said. “Such a big thing. An important thing. We never talked about it. Not a word.”
“I thought it was because we didn’t need to.”
Cassie nodded. “Maybe so.”
“Or maybe we were afraid to talk about it,” suggested Lauren.
“Afraid? Why?”
“Because sometimes a declaration of love grants permission.”
Cassie tilted her head, her face a question. “Permission for what?”
“To act. If we had talked about it, we might have been unable to turn away from one another like we did. It was hard enough as it was.”
“It was,” Cassie agreed. “Very hard. Maybe harder for me than for you. I was getting more and more unhappy. More lonely. If you had given me the slightest opening....”
The look in Cassie’s eyes troubled Lauren. She stood, turning away.
“Fortunately, we were both mature enough to know how to handle it,” she said. “Disaster averted.”
Lauren picked up the comforter and tossed it on the bed. Cassie slowly rose to her feet and helped put it in place.
Anxious to lighten the mood, Lauren said, “Oh, I have to tell you the hilarious story of my arrival here the other day. You’re going to crack up at this.”
Lauren proceeded to tell how she had caught Eric and Adele au naturel, embellishing the tale with a storyteller’s flair. It had the desired effect. They both ended up laughing themselves to tears.
Chapter Thirty
“Are you seeing anyone?” Cassie asked as they strolled along the bluff trail.
Lauren laughed as though it was an absurd idea, then realized that was rude. “No,” she said.
“Not interested?”
“Right. Nobody interested in me either.”
“I doubt that.”
“Depends on who you count. There’s Jaspar Henshaw, my neighbor. He’s a widower, sixty-eight, has gout and wears his pants up to his tits. He makes lewd comments to me regularly and I suppose he would have me if I were interested.” Cassie sputtered out a laugh. “And there’s that cute postal carrier, Michelle. Now that she knows I’m home most days, she makes a gazillion excuses to come up to the door to personally deliver my mail. ‘Looks valuable,’ or ‘too big and I didn’t want to leave it on the porch,’ or ‘looks like a greeting card and I didn’t want the humidity to warp it.’”
“Michelle, huh? Not a prospect?”
Lauren shook her head. “No. She’s twenty years old. It’s a crush. Lately I’ve taken to hiding in the back of the house when I see the mail truck coming.”
“But if you were putting yourself out there, looking for someone, you would find someone appropriate.”
“I’m not, though, because I’m not looking for someone. I have no interest in dating. The whole idea of it seems so unappealing. I’m content to be alone now.”
“Sounds like you know what you want.” Cassie studied her face briefly, then turned her attention back to the trail.
Lauren walked with her hands in her jacket pockets. It was chilly again today, even though the sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen anywhere. The trail followed close to the edge of the cliff. Some of it had crumbled away with the natural erosion of waves cutting into the base of the sandstone wall. The trail had been rerouted further inland in the worst of those places.
“Do you walk out here often when you’re in residence?” Lauren asked.
“In residence? You make it sound like Queen Elizabeth at Windsor or something. I should put up a flag to let the commoners round about know that I’m here, shouldn’t I?” Cassie’s nose was red from the cold. “Yes, I do walk here quite a bit. Clears my head. After two or three days, I usually manage to achieve a sense of peace I never feel back home.”
Cassie led the way off the trail to a rocky outcrop. They climbed to the top and sat close together with a view out to the ocean, waves crashing on bare rock fifty feet below.
“This is a good turnaround point,” she said.
As they sat watching a brown pelican riding the air currents, Lauren had to ask herself how this was different from ten years earlier when she had sat beside Cassie watching the surf of this ocean. They were older, of course, and, if not wiser, then at least less confident about their power over the world. She didn’t know about Cassie, but her own sense of helplessness and confusion had grown with time, especially in the last few years. Cassie didn’t seem to have changed much. Lauren felt as comfortable with her now as she had then. It almost seemed as if no time had passed at all. They had slipped effortlessly into their old affectionate friendship. It was a nice feeling.
One thing that had changed, however, was that Lauren no longer felt any physical desire for Cassie. Back then, she’d found it impossible to fight off that hunger. But now it was completely absent. Maybe ten years really had been enough to erase that. Lauren felt relieved. In the absence of desire, they were such wonderful companions.
“You’d never know it was summer,” Lauren observed.
“Not today. But you can’t tell the seasons here by the temperature. We have warm and cold days year round. Maybe it will warm up tomorrow. I hope so. So tell me about this article you’re researching. Where are we going while you’re here?”
“I’ve got a list. We can get started tomorrow. There’s an olive farm near Port Orford. The olive press is open for tours. Then there’s a dairy on Highway 42 where they make small batches of brie and camembert that can only be purchased on site. And a Russian bakery in Reedsport where they reportedly have very authentic piroshkies, not to mention some unbelievable Russian rye.”
Cassie laughed. “Just food, then!”
“Right. That’s what my article is about, eating and drinking your way along the Oregon Coast.”
“I have to say I like that idea. This is going to be fun!”
“I’m glad you think so. I know it’ll be more fun for me having you along.”
They watched the brown pelican again as it dove into the surf and came up empty. Returning to her earlier thoughts, Lauren asked, “Do you think I’ve changed?”
Cassie pursed her lips and squinted as though trying to decide. “Yes and no. You have a few gray hairs.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
Cassie laughed shortly. “Yes, I know. You seem the same in a lot of ways. And different in the ways one would expect. You seem sad. Not moping. Not that kind of sad. But fundamentally sad. That’s no surprise, though, after what you’ve been through.”
“Anything else?” Lauren asked, sensing that Cassie had more to say.
“You seem less free. Less open. Like a turtle pulled into its shell. Not willing to stick your neck out. It’s very subtle. Not a complaint at all. But I sense it. You don’t seem to have aged much in obvious ways, but your soul seems older.”
Lauren laughed shortly.
“Why did you laugh?” Cassie asked.
“Oh, it’s just that word. ‘Soul.’ Faith and I had so many discussions over that word, over so many people’s version of that thing we call the soul. She didn’t believe in it, as you know. I’ve never had the conviction about anything that she had, and certainly not about something like that, something that seems completely unknowable.”
“But you know what I mean by it, don’t you?”
“Sure. I know what you mean. You mean the life force.”
Cassie nodded. “Okay. I can accept that. That part of you was more adventurous when we knew one another before. Your life force.”
“I’m sure that’s true because Faith was the adventurous one, you know. If I was like that at all, it was because of her.”
“No, I don’t buy that. It was you. I knew you. You had a happy and fun-loving spirit. Her personality overshadowed yours, but that’s not what we’re talking about. It’s still there, I’m sure, your joyful spirit. Just like a turtle. Not quite ready to poke out and take a look yet. Given time, though, I’m sure you’ll resemble yourself again.”
Lauren shrugged, not convinced. She knew she was still in mourning. “Maybe so.”
Cassie smiled affectionately, then her expression grew serious. “I still can’t believe Faith is gone,” she said, turning to look at the ocean. “Was it really awful at the end?”
“It was awful in some ways. The hardest thing was to remain cheerful. I had to do that for her. Keep living in the moment, but it isn’t my nature. I was always either reliving some past event or worrying about the future. Mostly, I was thinking about what the future would be like for me when I was alone. Some days I couldn’t help feeling like she was already gone. So it was a real challenge not to completely fall apart around her. I didn’t always succeed.”
“But she must have known you were feeling that way a lot of the time anyway.”
“Sure, she did. I think she was trying to be cheerful for me too. She was so worried about me, it sometimes seemed I was the one who was sick.”
Cassie took hold of Lauren’s hand and held it in both of hers. “She thought you wouldn’t be able to go on?”
“She thought I would withdraw from life. She said, ‘I don’t want you to die with me. I want you to live for me. Do everything. Laugh and love and eat lots of lobster.’”
Cassie laughed. “Did she really say that?”
Lauren smiled. “Yes, she did.”
“So, have you been eating lobster?”
“No, I don’t think I’ve had any since...in a long time.”
“Why not?”
“Well,” Lauren pointed out, aiming for light-heartedness, “the thing about lobster is that they don’t just wander into your kitchen routinely. You have to make a conscious effort to seek them out. I just haven’t done that.”
Cassie smiled appreciatively and nodded.
“But we had fun too,” Lauren said. “It wasn’t all gloomy. When her hair started growing back, it came in coarse and more gray than before, so I dyed it bright red and spiked it up for her. She loved that. And I thought she looked totally hot with that hairdo.”
Cassie laughed. “I’ll bet!”
“Every day we had together was another chance to share something nice. We did try to stay in the moment, and there were a lot of good days during that last year.”
“Make every day count,” Cassie said, echoing a thought she’d heard a long time ago.
“Right. We tried.”
Lauren gazed at Cassie for a moment, thinking about how simple it was to talk to her. There was no one else she could be this open with. The closest was her brother, but their conversations never got this serious. Lots of people offered. If you want to talk, Lauren, don’t hesitate to call. But she hadn’t, wouldn’t seriously consider it. Exactly the opposite, in fact. When people tried to talk to her about Faith, especially about her feelings, she changed the subject as quickly as she could without seeming rude. She’d thought she had no need to talk. What practical purpose could be served by talking? But at the moment she felt a great sense of relief to be doing just that.
“It sounds like she was very brave,” Cassie noted.
“She was. She never felt sorry for herself. Just the luck of the draw, she said. And she didn’t convert or anything at the end like people do sometimes. They start believing in heaven or reincarnation or something because they can’t face the idea of nothingness. People would rather be
lieve in hell than in nothing. But she didn’t waver. That impressed me because she had a lot of stories to choose from, so many different versions of the great beyond, you know, that she might have latched onto for comfort. Some of them aren’t all that objectionable, even to a scientist like Faith. But she was okay with the idea of nothingness.”
“That seems ironic to me, that she didn’t believe in some version of the hereafter, considering her work. You’d think something would have rubbed off on her.”
“Maybe there were too many versions. So many different stories make it hard to believe in any one of them. Pretty soon they’re all just stories.” Lauren looked around for the pelican, spotting it as it prepared for another dive. “I sometimes wonder if all of it wasn’t some sort of search.”
“Search for what?”
“Something to believe in.” Lauren shook her head. “If it was, she never found it. She was completely certain there was nothing else.”
Cassie faced Lauren, her expression solemn. “What do you think?”
Lauren considered the question briefly, then said, “I hope she was wrong.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Olive oil tasting is not as much fun as wine tasting, Lauren knew, so she promised Cassie a stop at a winery later. But Cassie wasn’t complaining. Quite the opposite. She was making herself useful by serving as photographer, leaving Lauren free to concentrate on taking notes. They toured the olive orchard and presses, then spent half an hour in the olive oil tasting room. The different oils, several hues of green and gold, were served in shallow bowls.
Cassie laughed as she read the cards beside each oil. “Oh, my God, this sounds just like wine. Listen to this. ‘High fruitiness, peppery, hint of citrus, clean finish.’”
“Believe it or not, the serious tasters do drink it from a glass just like wine. They sniff, swirl, and swallow.”
“I’d like to see that,” Cassie said, her eyes twinkling with delight. “I’m sure it’s hilarious. Really, Lauren, I can’t believe people do this, like a day out in the country. I mean, it’s interesting and kind of a hoot, but who are all these people?”